Fantasy Baseball: Clayton Kershaw’s gem one for the ages

Clayton Kershaw gets a hug from catcher A.J. Ellis after he throws a no hitter. The Dodgers defeated the Colorado Rockies 8-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CA. 6/18/2014(Photo by John McCoy Daily News)

Clayton Kershaw’s no-hitter on Wednesday night was so dominating that it is in the conversation for the best single-game pitching performance of all time.

The Dodgers ace made the Rockies look silly all night long, only going to a three-ball count once and recording 15 strikeouts – 14 on offspeed pitches.

Bill James, aka the Godfather of Sabermetrics, devised a statistic to compare pitching performances called game score, which I won’t get into the particulars of the formula. Let’s just say that it’s a handy little tool for an exercise such as this.

Kershaw’s game score of 102 was the second-best nine-inning performance of the last 100 years, bettered only by Kerry Wood’s 105 in his 20-strikeout masterpiece in 1998.

There’s a three-way tie for third between Nolan Ryan’s 16-strikeout no-hitter in 1991 and perfect games by Matt Cain in 2012 and Sandy Koufax in 1965.

I watched the Wood game and it’s the most dominant I’ve ever seen a pitcher look. He had the Astros flailing all day, but he did surrender one hit.

Kershaw managed his no-hitter in just 107 pitches, and that’s with having to get an extra out because of an error by Hanley Ramirez.

It comes down to which you prefer — the precision and mastery of Kershaw or the electricity and power of Wood.

In real life, I’ll take Kershaw, but for fantasy, I’d take Wood’s 20 strikeouts.

Despite having missed six weeks on the DL with a strained lat, Kershaw has already risen to No. 10 on the ESPN player rater for fantasy performance up to this point. I have him rated as the No. 1 starting pitcher going forward.

•As for the coming week, there are 12 teams playing seven games, 15 playing six and three playing three. The A’s are playing all five games in NL parks, so they’ll lose the DH, costing John Jaso, Alberto Callaspo and Derek Norris a few at-bats.

The ace of the week is Kershaw, who will go for a second straight no-hitter at Kansas City before coming home to face St. Louis.

The sleeper of the week is Andrew Heaney, the Marlins’ heralded pitching prospect who debuted Thursday and has two starts this week — Tuesday at Philadelphia and Sunday vs. Oakland.

The breakout player of the week is J.D. Martinez, the Tigers outfielder who has four homers in his past six games and gets favorable pitching matchups in three-game series at Texas and Houston.

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Stud and dud of the week

Billy Hamilton: The Reds rookie edged out Angels superstart Mike Trout with an unexpected power outburst to go with his usual speed, going 13-for-29 with two homers, eight runs, seven RBIs and five steals. Don’t count on too many more homers going forward, but Hamilton is proving his doubters wrong by getting on base enough to utilize his blinding speed to the tune of 30 steals.

Ernesto Frieri: The erstwhile Angels closer began the week by surrendering a four-run lead in the ninth without getting a single out last Saturday, gave up another run in a non-save situation on Tuesday, then came on to give up a game-winning grand slam to Nick Swisher on Thursday. Frieri’s ERA for the week was 40.51 and resulted in Mike Scioscia taking him out of the closer role to instead go with a committee to finish games.

For updated in-season position rankings to help gauge trades and waiver-wire pickups, go to www.rotoace.com.